Camoflauged 1903 sniper rifle - WW I

DaveFromSheffield said:

That picture is quite well known (and even in the M1903 bible by Brophy), it just got colorized. Who knows what the original camoflage colors really were. Nice to see a suggestion on how it may had looked like. Original:

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I often think, how do they know what the colors.

I just watched a video on the sinking of the Szent Istvan, that real famous video of the BB that Italy sent torpedo boats after and it got filmed rolling over. It was in color, as well as black and white. How did they figure out these shades of gray are that color?

In a photo like this, well we know his shirt and pants are this shade of green, the tags are silver, can they make "best guesses" based on known shades of colors?

How do we know this guy was not blonde, or a red head?

DaveFromSheffield said:

Painting black/white images is the task of an artist. Pieces of art contain the mind of the artist. Do not make the mistake to confuse this with assuming he knows what the colors actually were. While with colorization of war pictures the artists usually choose what actually might had been the look, but especially images like the one in question give them a certain choice with which colors they choose for camouflage of a stock. So take this as a piece of art where the artists using his freedom of art to pick specific colors.

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I seem to remember in the dusty areas of my bring, a tank or something (half track) being restored in the wrong colors. Then some document they found said, no it should be those colors.

I bet it happens often.